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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6115990" data-attributes="member: 2067">"Natural" and "Undead" should be probably mutually exclusive territories. Imagine being a newbie stumbling across that little surprise for the first time and trying to parse a world where undead are naturally-occurring parts of the ecosystem and are described as "unnatural creatures born of evil magic" in the fluff but as natural creatures right there in the stats.And it's always easy to pretend like the rules aren't written the way they are, but that doesn't mean the rules should be written in a way that is obfuscating and awkward. 4e's types don't do much for the actual function of monster types in D&D. Functionally, monster types play the following roles:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Groups of creatures who, in the fiction of the world, are closely allied with each other and in some sense share basic cultural and biological traits.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Groups of creatures who certain classes gain special abilities in dealing with or dealing against.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Groups of creatures who certain magic items are especially effective or ineffective against. </li> </ul>I personally am beginning to suspect that none of those things actually need to tie into "monster types." Magic items and special abilities don't need to be reliably used, and fictional association can be conveyed without lumping EVERY monster into Category X or Category Y. Remember we didn't even have actual monster types before 3e: creatures were occasionally lumped together as the same type of creature, and that was fine. We didn't need to denote this formally somewhere, and thus define exactly what a creature was.Without needing to tie into the rules, what purpose do monster types serve that a simpler, more specific keywords wouldn't serve better? If the druid can communicate with "natural creatures," does anyone need to be told that the druid can talk with a sparrow? And do we need the game to tell us if the druid can officially talk to dinosaurs or undead or not, or might that be part of how a DM defines their world, or a question to be answered on a case-by-case basis?</blockquote>

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